Billionaire defends increased immigration to fight US inflation

Bill Ackman, the billionaire investment fund manager and activist investor, has an alternative idea for fighting inflation: increase immigration .

He criticized the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes in a series of tweets on Thursday and Friday as a blunt tool that will destroy consumer demand and trigger a recession.

“Inflation can be mitigated by reducing demand and/or increasing supply,” tweeted Ackman of Pershing Square Capital.

“Doesn’t it make more sense to moderate wage inflation by increasing immigration than to raise rates, destroy demand, put people out of work and cause a recession?”

The argument is that by increasing the availability of workers in the United States, companies will be less pressured to fill open positions.

Ackman, a longtime Democratic donor with an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion, is not the first person to make such an argument, and there is research that supports the idea that issuing more visas to immigrants and foreign workers Temporary sales are linked to more stable supply chains and lower total consumer costs.

In another tweet, Ackman suggested that immigration policy could be crafted to “achieve important policy goals, such as catalyzing a flight of Russian talent to the US.”

An influx of workers can add some slack to a historically tight labor market, in which there are still approximately two job openings for every job seeker.

Unemployment, at 3.7%, is near its lowest level in half a century.

Supply chain delays, the war in Ukraine and Covid-19-related downturns have all played a huge role in inflating food, energy and housing costs over the past two years.

Corporations have also passed on costs to preserve their profit margins, and climate change is creating unprecedented volatility in commodity markets.